Political strategist Donna Brazile urged women to seize the opportunity to break through the "glass ceiling" that has limited their professional development for so long.

In an inspiring and entertaining speech on Friday evening at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess, at the conclusion of Bank of Bermuda's Women's Development Association Women's Conference, Ms Brazile said some of the barriers to women's career progress were psychological.

Almost three quarters of Bank of Bermuda's employees are female and chief executive Philip Butterfield has said he wants to see women better represented in top management.

The bank hosted a full day of half-hour workshops for its female staff on Friday, on topics including dressing for success, negotiating, networking, stress management and optimal health.

The highlight of the event was the speech by Ms Brazile, who in 2000 became the first African American to run a US presidential campaign, working for Al Gore. She gave women a few pointers from her experience on how to achieve success.

Women should visualise success, she said, just as her mother had taught her to do. "Sometimes we're scared to see ourselves in places we have not been able to get to," Ms Brazile said. "You have to have your own personal vision."

Other tips were never to take "no" as a final answer and to stop asking for permission. "When you ask for permission, all you're doing is delaying your day when you could be reaching your goal," Ms Brazile said.

She called for women to accept the fact that they were powerful and to socialise with other women with a positive attitude to celebrate each other, rather than to compete.

"That glass ceiling is not just physical, it's psychological," she said. "We must use what's in our spirit to break it and open up those doors like never before."

Many women had "beaten themselves down", Ms Brazile said, and she urged them to "break the old pattern and let go of the negative feelings".

She added that Bank of Bermuda was encouraging women to progress in their careers. "Mr. Butterfield wants you to climb the ladder," Ms Brazile said. "He wants you to be in the room and to have a seat at the table. It's up to you to work out how to get there. It's up to you to figure out how to break those barriers and then you will soar."

Ms Brazile spoke of her own life, her upbringing in a large family in Louisiana, coming from the "wrong side of the tracks" and how she got involved in politics to try and effect positive social change.

She took on her first political fight at the age of nine when she campaigned, successfully, for a city council candidate who had promised a playground in her neighbourhood. She has worked on a string of Democratic presidential campaigns since 1976.

Ms Brazile, a political contributor for CNN and a political consultant for ABC News, is a friend of US President Barack Obama and has paid three visits to the White House since his inauguration in January.

Her first visit was for the President's signing into law of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act 2009, which ensures equal pay for everyone doing the same job for a company, backdated from the time any discriminatory pay deal was first agreed. Her second visit was a social occasion, for a White House concert featuring Stevie Wonder.

She ventured to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue a third time for the signing of a presidential executive order to create the White House Council for Women and Girls, to ensure "American women and girls are treated fairly in all matters of public policy".

"It's been so amazing, empowering and wonderful to see this change," Ms Brazile said. She said that it was "good to have a president who gets to work on time every day" and who reads more than the latest CIA intelligence briefings on threats to national security, a president who concerns himself with jobs, health care and "making the world better for everybody".